The clothing and fashion industry has traditionally depended on a business model in which customers purchase goods from physical retail locations. These goods are often discarded by the customer while the item is in good condition or even excellent condition. Numerous retail locations are necessary to attract customers and provide sufficient space for the display of items and to stock items of different styles, sizes, etc. These physical retail locations are operated by teams of employees and are both labor-intensive and expensive to maintain. Additionally, each physical location can only attract consumers within a narrow geographic area. It is also expensive and difficult to adapt multiple retail locations to rapidly-changing trends.
Although many industries have successfully migrated to Internet-connected platforms, the clothing industry largely remains dependent on physical retail stores and traditional business models. Even when a sale of clothing is performed over the Internet, the item may still be used infrequently by a single consumer before being discarded. Thus, the fashion and clothing industry also produces a significant amount of waste.
Various challenges face retailers seeking to transition to alternate strategies that provide items for short-term or temporary use. One such challenge lies in managing inbound articles for inspection, maintenance, cleaning, research, or stocking, and accumulating useful data based on the result of each activity. Current clothing rental services clean or treat articles in an only cursory manner, if cleaning or treatment is performed at all. Even when a more rigorous cleaning treatment is performed, data associated with the treatment are not recorded.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the above-referenced drawbacks to prior techniques for distributing and spot cleaning articles.